nofunberg

Gone to Texas: Day Two

I slept like the dead between day one and day two. Between waking up super-early and the many events of the day, I was thankful for the freedom to sleep in. I woke up some time around 7 AM feeling refreshed and excited for the day ahead. After a quick shower, I queued up the poem I’d be reading that afternoon and read it over and over. I knew I wouldn’t be able to memorize it in time, but being comfortable with the piece would be more than enough to make it look good. (Well, good enough.) Rain intermittently pattered on the balcony outside my room as a paced back and forth, playing with tone and emphasis.

Gone to Texas: Day One

One of my oldest friends — let’s call her Gir, since I didn’t ask permission to user her name — got married last weekend. The whole event would have come as a surprise more than a year prior. A Chicago native and staunchly liberal, Gir found herself deep in the heart of Texas while pursuing an advanced degree. She lamented the necessity. Every time we spoke, she told me she couldn’t wait to leave. However, Gir was set on completing her education.

It didn’t come as a surprise that Gir met someone while studying in the San Antonio area. She is a bubbly, exciting individual who is pretty much always fun. True to her nature, she told the man she’d met (whose name was… Prefect? Pontiff? I’ll remember eventually.) that the relationship wouldn’t last, and that once she was done with school she’d be leaving town. Undaunted, he courted her. He looked for work in Chicago when she moved back to the city, but when nothing panned out, she decided to move back to Texas.

Oh yeah, and somewhere in all that, they got engaged.

Flagship Killer: The Impoverished Geek Review of the OnePlus One

OnePlus, an offshoot of Chinese company Oppo, wants to break free of the mold. Their first phone, simply called “One,” matches 2014’s flagship phones in every appreciable way, dropping gimmicks in order to refine what a user’s base expectation of a smartphone should be. It has the same processor as the Samsung Galaxy S5, HTC One (M8), and LG’s G3. It has a screen as big as or bigger than the competition, with a resolution that is eclipsed only by the G3. It meets or exceeds the competition in regards to RAM and storage.

The big difference? It costs half as much as anything else on the market.

After Two Months, Does the Surface Pro 3 Keep Its Shine?

I’ve been using a Surface Pro 3 more or less as my main personal computer for the last two months. It has been an interesting experience, to say the least.

Occasionally I Write For Other People.

For instance, I look at the need for more diversity in gaming over at presstartolay.

The Search

It was an uncharacteristically warm day in the midst of a harsh Chicago winter. The skies were clear, and the sun was beaming as brightly as it could. Though the relative comfort would certainly give way to the harsh cold of the evening, for the moment Abraham was thrilled. He hoped the warm afternoon would find Zoe in good spirits.

Abraham knew he was getting ahead of himself, but as Zoe approached him outside of Gulliver’s Pizzeria, he thought, “She could be the one.” Certainly, she was very pretty, and that was undoubtedly a factor in his wanting to pursue her. She wore a pansy-purple top coat over a simple black dress. That, along with her slender-but-curvy-in-the-right-places build and pixie cut made her almost an echo of Audrey Hepburn. More than just pretty, she was smart and had a magnetic personality. The moment she walked into his cafe, he saw her potential.

Review: Microsoft Surface Pro 3

Microsoft has been trying to merge the two concepts into one device with their Surface Pro line, and the first two models met with some success. I reviewed the original Surface Pro about six months ago, and found the concept compelling but the execution lacking.

Net Neutrality

There’s a big-to-do about Net Neutrality these days. Everyone is stumbling over themselves to explain it, providing any number of stilted and self-serving analogies to dumb the concept down. I’m not going to do that here. Instead, I’m going to explain to you, very simply, how the internet actually works, so you can understand why Net Neutrality is important. Ready?

Isla Vista

I wrote 750 words about the shooting in Isla Vista, California, but I don’t think I have anything to add to the discussion. A spoiled brat with an entitlement complex let his imagination run wild and, having never looked inward to consider that his issues might stem from within, decided to take his frustrations out on the world instead of trying to fix himself. That his family intervened and failed is unfortunate, that they could not convince authorities to take action beforehand doubly so.

Los Angeles, Day Six

I left Pasadena just before 2 am, and made the drive back to my hotel in Hawthorne in less than forty five minutes. The drive there took nearly an hour and a half. That’s LA traffic in a nutshell. All big-city traffic, really.

I packed my bags, leaving a single change of clothes out for the next day and attempted to go to bed. I did not sleep well. Perhaps it was apprehension about the flight, or just a sense of the area still tugging on me. I went to LA intending to do a number of things. I accomplished most of them. I met up with friends. I took in the sights. I experienced new things. I came to realize that, yes, Los Angeles is a place I could be happy living. I did not decide whether it was somewhere I would move right away, though. That one lingering thing continues to gnaw at me.

Where do I go from here? I don’t have the answer yet.